


who set you free

by desastrista



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 04:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7207289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desastrista/pseuds/desastrista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isander knew what it was to play a role. It was all he had ever known. But things change after he is freed. Luckily, he finds someone who can help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who set you free

**Author's Note:**

> someone on the captive prince tag on tumblr asked for more isander fic. as i thought about it, i realized it was dealing with a lot of the same thematic issues that i'd been trying to get out in a fic just focused on kallias, so i decided to combine the two.

Once, Isander had thought he was in love. 

No, that wasn’t quite right. 

He had played a role and played it so well that he had even fooled himself. That was what being a slave was. Play the role right – cater to all your master’s needs, submit yourself in all things to them, fall in love with them even – and in turn your master will honor you and grant you privileges. 

Privileges like the First Night. 

Privileges that don’t include being left behind as your master takes a horse from the stables and rides off into the night. 

Laurent was a Prince, now a King. Being chosen by him had been the highest honor Isander could have hoped for. It was just sometimes Isander struggled to remember that, when fellow slaves asked him in hushed voices how his First Night had been. Isander always just smiled and changed the subject.

It hadn’t been love, what he had felt for Laurent that night. He had just been playing a role. Laurent had known. It had just taken Isander a little longer to see the truth. 

After that night, he stayed with the Veretian army as it made its way south. He kept on serving Laurent faithfully. He belonged to Laurent when Laurent became one of the two kings of a new kingdom. And his reward for his loyal service – well, that came when the two new Kings gathered up all the Palace slaves and told them they were free. 

It was Damen who actually spoke, although Laurent was by his side. He seemed happy. At least, Isander thought he might be happy. It was not always so easy to tell. And for a moment, Isander was happy because Laurent was happy. But then Damen kept talking, explaining what being free would mean. If the Palace slaves wanted, they could stay on as servants. If they did not, they were free to leave. They had no masters now. No one would be telling them what to do from now on. 

And that was when Isander realized what was happening.

There had been a role that he was playing. The happy, dutiful slave. He’d fooled himself. He had not fooled Laurent.

And now that role was gone. 

None of the members of the household said anything. Like Isander, they were probably struggling to understand exactly what the King’s words meant. 

And then it was over. Damen and Laurent had called in a blacksmith. He would be removing the cuffs they each wore around their necks and wrists. Because obedience was second nature to the slaves in the room, they lined up neatly to wait. It was an orderly affair. No one had anything much to say, although some of the slaves spoke to each other in hushed tones. They sounded confused, more than anything. 

Isander was near the end of the line. He hadn’t said anything to anyone. He wasn’t sure what there was to say. He felt like he was in a haze, and he did not know what to do except obey. 

Time passed. The line shortened. Isander barely noticed until a disagreement in front of the line brought him back to his senses. 

“I want to keep one cuff on,” a man was saying. He was young; not that much older than Isander. He had dark hair; his eyes were set wide apart. He was handsome, Isander couldn’t help but think. Perhaps all the more handsome because there was a certain spark in his eyes. Perhaps it was the argument that was enlivening him, but he carried himself with a boldness that Isander couldn’t help but envy. 

The blacksmith did not seem to be so taken in. “It’s the King’s orders,” he said. His voice was flat. Bored, no doubt. 

“Yes,” the slave insisted. “but I want to keep the cuff. The Kings have their cuffs. Why can’t I have mine?” 

That argument was just met with confusion. “It’s the Kings’ orders,” the blacksmith repeated, as if perhaps this slave hadn’t heard correctly the first time. “They said all the slaves’ cuffs are to come off.” 

“But I’m supposed to be free. Shouldn’t I get to decide?”

This was holding up the line. There was some confused muttering from the slaves who were left. 

There was some confused muttering from the slaves who were left. 

“I don’t know what he’s thinking,” the woman in front of Isander said under her breath. 

The blacksmith seemed to be of the same mind. “I’m the one they gave the orders to,” he said, his tone turning sour. “And the Kings were very explicit, they said all the cuffs have to come off. They said you slaves might not understand, they might resist, but the cuffs had to go. So that’s what I’m here to do.” 

Perhaps the disagreement had gone on long enough, but the man relented, and his last cuff was taken off too. The woman in front of Isander gave a small nod. Some part of the world was back to the way it should be. The slave left the room. Isander watched him go. 

When his time came, Isander did not protest his own cuffs being removed. He didn’t suppose they made much of a difference to him. They were just ornaments, anyways. When the blacksmith had finished, Isander headed out in the direction that the man had gone. 

He found the other slave sitting underneath one of the trees by the Palace, overlooking the ocean. He looked contemplative. Isander approached him hesitantly. He would hate to disturb him, but he felt like he had to say _something_. 

“I’m sorry about the cuff,” he eventually blurted out. It seemed such a silly thing to say. Isander felt a sudden rush of self-consciousness. 

The other man just gave a resigned shrug. “That’s how things are, I guess.” He looked up at Isander from where he was sitting. “But thank you, I guess. I don’t think anyone else in that room understood.” 

“Why did you want to keep it?” 

The other man was quiet for a moment. He turned his gaze back to the ocean. Just when Isander was about to apologize – he shouldn’t have asked, he hadn’t mean to pry – the man said, “I didn’t want to forget. What happened to me.” 

Whatever Isander had been expecting, it was not that. His brows furrowed. 

“You were a Palace slave?” he asked. 

“I belonged to Kastor.” The other man laughed darkly, as if there was something funny about that fact. “I thought – when the new Kings came to power, that they might kill some of the old household.” 

“But that’s horrible!” Isander couldn’t help but interject. “The Kings would never –.” 

It was such an unthinkable act, Isander floundered trying to think of words to describe it. But the man just gave him a sideways glance. “It’s what happened before,” he said, his voice quiet, “When the old King died. Everyone thought Damianos dead. They rounded up and murdered the slaves who wore his pin.”

Isander felt ill just hearing the words. Of course, he remembered the day that they had received the news – the day the whole kingdom had received the news – that the King was dead and his son as well. And then to discover the truth, months later, that Damianos lived and that Kastor had betrayed his brother. Isander knew all of this, had seen some of it for himself even. But he had never stopped to think about how these events would have unfolded in the Palace. 

“That’s not how these Kings are,” Isander said firmly. 

“No,” the man agreed. “I know that, now. But I’ll always remember what it was like – at the Palace, before the two Kings arrived. I wanted to have something – something to keep with me.” 

“It seems like the kind of memory you would want to forget.” 

The other man did not say anything to that. But it was a very peculiar kind of silence; not one that told Isander he was right, but one that told Isander there was much he did not understand. 

“What’s your name?” the man finally asked him. 

“Isander. And yours?” 

“Kallias.” Kallias stood up, and though he smiled Isander couldn’t help but find his expression guarded. “Well, I should be going. But perhaps I will see you around, Isander.” 

 

***** 

 

In the days that followed, Isander could not help thinking about Kallias. 

His new life was much the same as his old life. He stayed at the Palace; he did not want to go back to Marlas, and there was nowhere else for him. The Palace was very large. It was not hard to avoid the Kings. It was so easy that sometimes Isander could even forget that was what he was doing. 

He spent a lot of time trying to find Kallias again. And so he kept going back to the garden where he had talked to him before. It was a few days before their paths crossed again. This time, Kallias was by a bed of roses. He was on his hands and knees, his back to Isander, and he looked as if he was digging through the dirt. 

Isander walked towards him slowly. “Kallias?” he said, causing the other man to start. 

“Oh,” he said, looking almost relieved, “It’s you. Isander, right?” Isander nodded. 

“What are you doing?” 

There was a flash of what looked like guilt that travelled across Kallias’s face, but it was only there for a moment before his features repositioned themselves into a studied neutrality. “I buried something here a while ago. I’m trying to find it again, but it seems I forgot exactly where I placed it.” 

“Oh,” Isander said. He added, “I can help, if you like.” 

For a moment, Kallias looked like he might decline, but then he smiled. “If you want,” he said. 

“What are you looking for?” Isander said, once he had knelt down and his hands were already grasping through the dirt. “Do you remember anything about how you buried it?”

“It shouldn’t be too far down, but not too close to the surface either – I wanted to make sure it didn’t get washed up unexpectedly by a heavy rain. As for what it is, well, you’ll know it when you see it.” 

That did not seem a satisfactory answer to Isander, but his first impression of Kallias was not of someone who shared too much of themselves without cause, and so he was not exactly surprised by the vagueness of the answer. Isander kept looking, carefully digging while trying not to disturb the flowers too much. So far he had only seen dirt and more dirt, and he suspected that Kallias was probably right, if he encountered anything strange he would know that it was Kallias’s. 

“So, you’re a free man now,” Kallias eventually said, breaking the silence, “but you’ve decided to stay at the Castle. Are you in the employ of the Kings?” 

“I --” Isander hesitated. “I’m staying at the Castle, but I don’t serve Laurent anymore.” 

Kallias turned to give him a quick look over. “I’m not surprised it was Laurent you were serving,” he said candidly. Isander felt his cheeks burning. He knew what Kallias meant.

It was his coloring. The truth about what he looked like – and what he looked like to Laurent – was one of those truths that Isander had known for a while but accepted only recently. Or maybe he was still accepting it. It was hard to admit that a King had chosen him for his First Night – the night that was supposed to be the most important night of his life, the highest honor that could be bestowed on him – all because he happened to share the coloring of a certain Akielon King. 

Kallias must have seen something in his expression, because he added, sounding almost conciliatory, “It happens all the time. A member of the Royal Family has a certain type -- their gaze happen to fall on someone – and that person’s life is forever changed.” 

“You make it sound...romantic.” 

“Believe me, it is not.” 

There was a sudden curtness to Kallias’s words. 

Isander’s hands had found a strange coolness. He grabbed at the dirt. Vaguely, he wondered if he had said something to offend the other man. 

Isander made a first in the dirt and pulled up what he had found. He brushed away the excess dirt until he could make sense of what he had found. It was a pin. Isander cleaned the last of the dirt away. At the top of the pin there was a carving of a lion. 

“I think this is what you were looking for,” Isander said. Kallias turned to look at him, and his gaze fell to his hands. Isander could see how his eyes widened. He reached out and took the pin, holding it lightly between his thumb and forefinger. 

“Thank you,” he said, and there was a strangely referential sound to his voice. “I – I wasn’t sure I’d actually be able to find it again.” 

A pin was such a small, inconsequential thing to bury. Such a small, inconsequential thing to talk about in that tone. 

“You said,” Isander began slowly. “That the guards rounded up the slaves who were wearing the Prince’s pin.” The Royal family would not use plain pins; they would have wanted to mark their household. Slowly, things were becoming clearer. “Someone got rid of their pin. You knew where it was. You helped someone get rid of it.” 

“Helped,” Kallias repeated the word softly. “Yes,” he said, his gaze turning back to Isander, even as his voice took on a far-away tone, “He was sent to Vere, with an envoy. I thought he might have returned with Laurent, and yet –.” 

When the Veretians had come to Akielos, they had come without any slaves. Before they had arrived at the Palace, there had been only Isander. He shook his head. Kallias’s eyes turned downwards. 

“This is the reminder you needed,” Isander said, “since you couldn’t keep the cuff?” 

Kallias just nodded. He did not lift his gaze. But Isander could see a certain rawness in his expression and Isander did not know what to say. 

And then the moment passed. Kallias rearranged his features and took on that studied neutralness again. Isander found himself wondering just how many times he had done that. 

Keeping his secrets. Burying anything that could have betrayed him, even his own emotions. Especially his emotions. 

Isander did not doubt that when he had been with Kastor, Kallias had been the finest of actors, playing a carefully prescribed role. It was what would have kept him alive during dangerous times. 

It was what he would have been expected to do, as a slave. 

Isander knew all about playing roles. But Kallias was not like Isander; he had fooled his master but never himself.

Kallias was standing up to go. He was muttering some thanks to Isander, empty words again, when Isander said, “Wait.” 

Isander felt once again this sudden strange sense that he wanted to know more about Kallias. 

“You’re not – you’re not like other people,” he found himself saying. 

Kallias shook his head. He had a thin, humorless smile, “Funny,” he said, “that’s what they told me when I was in training.” 

“I just – you don’t talk like a slave.” 

There was a steeliness to Kallias’s gaze when he responded, “We’re both free now, neither of us should be talking like slaves.” 

“I just – I wish you to teach me,” Isander started, not even sure what he was asking for. “How to stop being a slave. Because I think you’ve stopped, and I haven’t. Not really.” 

That seemed to get Kallias’s attention. He sat back down again, but did not say anything for a moment. 

“It’s not –,” he finally began. There was no missing the edge when he spoke, the uncertainty, “It’s not someone telling you that you’re free that makes it so.” Kallias shook his head impatiently. “It’s more than that – I. Do you understand? There was – one day. When I had to make a choice. I could have done what I had been trained to do, to obey my master. And it would have cost me everything. So I made my choice. Wouldn’t you have done the same?” 

Another silence. There was only the faint sound of insects buzzing. The sound of waves crashing against a distant shore. “I’m worried I wouldn’t have,” Isander said, honestly. “But I think – the more I see you, the more I talk with you, the more I understand.” 

There was a moment when Kallias’s expression was unreadable. Isander felt doubt gnawing at him. And then Kallias broke out in a smile, and Isander couldn’t help but smile too. 

Once, Isander thought he had been in love. 

But that hadn’t been quite right. 

He’d just been playing a role. He had never had an idea of what it was to not be playing a role. 

But now, he was beginning to think he might learn.


End file.
